The book contains a collection of historical and systematic studies on metaphors and related topics, in German and English, that were first drafted as initial elaborations of the author's research project on the historical and systematic philosophy of language at the University of Tübingen in two periods (1992–1994 and 1996–1999). About half of the essays have been published before in some form but for this edition they have been improved upon or revised to fit better with the book as a whole. The groundwork for this collection was laid in the mid-1990s by the first review paper, written in Croatian, devoted to the topic. The papers collected in this volume are only in German and English. Grouped in sections, they do not represent different language versions of the same text but provide individual elaborations of interrelated topics in German or in English. Each begins with different problems of both historical and systematic nature and each ends, hopefully, by contributing new points to their respective topic. As a result, every chapter can be read either as an alternative to the paper it is paired with in the respective section or as a supplement to other texts.
The text deals with the recently renewed issue of ?antiphilosophy? in the self-understanding of some prominent contemporary continental philosophers but not only them, such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, both referring to the psychoanalyst and theoretician of discourse Jacques Lacan. Starting with a metaphorical analysis of the verdict made by Marx of ?merely interpretive? character of philosophy in relation to ?the study of real world? and with his comparison of philosophy with ?masturbation?, the text addresses new appeals to ?antiphilosophy? as samples of a token or rather, as cases of a syndrome connected with Jocasta?s rationalization of Oedipus? curse. It was her discourse based on general rules of rationality with which she unconsciously attempted to avoid the confrontation with the truth of an event (incestuous marriage) which had already occurred. In the text, presuppositions and consequences of such an analogy between ancient and contemporary philosophical material are discussed in order to show-on the basis of arguing that the unconscious is located within (and not beyond) rational processes that subjects undertake in order to respond to rational needs (viz. impulses of the Ego)-that contemporary discussion about ?antiphilosophy? by left-wing philosophers bears unacknowledged tendencies to unconsciously reduce Marx? algorithm of ?realization of philosophy? to the Hegelian negation of the negation and to integrate it into the discourse of academic philosophy.
In a close reading of Plato's use of substituting terms for metaphor and of the notion paradigm in his later dialogues, as well as of Aristotle's criticism of the overall 'paradigmatic discourse' in Plato, the paper tries to elaborate some new arguments, not included or insufficiently recognised in recent scholarly writing, for the position that Plato's conception cannot be reduced to the old-fashioned metaphysical model of the universal-particular relationship. He offers, instead, a dynamic model of dialectical cross-relations of genera, species and particulars that acts productively in several theoretical directions, aiming both at coherence and foundation of discourse. The paper supplements a related study on the use of paradigm in modern and contemporary philosophies of science, trying out a Wittgensteinian solution to some enigmas in Plato's notion of the 'ultimate paradigm' at the 'metaphysical' level of his theory of 'highest principles'. It is part of a broader research for a book on metaphors in the discourse of philosophy and sciences.
The article discusses the relation between the paradigmatic status of film and use of film analogies in the psychoanalytic discourse on society and culture by Slavoj Zizek, which represents the very ground of his philosophical discourse in general. In the first part, starting with a recent discussion by different English and American scholars on controversial aspects of Slavoj Zizek?s activity in academia and on a broader public scene, the paper discusses on some parallel examples and inherent motivators of the form-content controversy in philosophy and pop-culture as well as Zizek?s interpretation of his position. In the second part, the article discusses Zizek?s sporadic meta-reflection on exemplification and provides arguments for the thesis that, in Zizek, on the ground of his ontology of the virtual, one encounters a double conception of ?inherence? (paradigmatic and analogical) between instance and principle, its consequence is a shift in the use of film examples from analogy of objects to analogy of analyses, which invents a typical conflict between the metonymic and metaphorical evasion of discourse. On this background, the article reexamines the general contention against Zizek of a ?virtual totalitarianism? without contingency of meaning and sense, and points to the position of the subject without discourse as another ground for the condition of analysis of truth. In the third part, the paper analyses and evaluates Zizek?s own understanding of his cinematographic illustrations and his peculiar, performing and self-referential, method of resolving the epistemological problem of film interpretation through imaginary identification or ?empathy? with film objects. In the fourth part, the paper discusses the apparent asymmetry between Zizek?s application of psychoanalytic doctrines onto film criticism, on one side, and, on the other, his little elaborated apotheosis of so-called ?cinematic materialism?. It is argued that this asymmetry ultimately causes what Zizek rejects in principle: a substitution of materialism and contingency of truth-search for a holism of sense. Consequently this seems to turn the psychoanalytic discourse on cinematography into a hermeneutic one.
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